The following patent application, having the same inventors and the same assignee as the present invention and filed concurrently herewith, covers subject matter related to the subject matter of the present invention: xe2x80x9cNetwork Transmission of Pages in Linkable Markup Language to Receiving Display Stations with Currently Displayed Pages Controlled by Tags in Succeeding Pages to Produce Aesthetically Pleasing Transitions Between Pagesxe2x80x9d, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/359,612.
The present invention relates to computer managed communication networks such as the World Wide Web (Web) and, particularly, to ease of use of interactive computer controlled display interfaces for receiving a succession of transmitted pages in progressions, or shifting between pages which are user friendly and provide the user, as well as the creator of the Web pages, with some control over progressions between pages.
The 1990""s decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has, in turn, driven technologies which have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the Internet or Web related distribution of documents, media and programs. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communication distribution channels, and the Web or Internet, which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility, reached xe2x80x9ccritical massxe2x80x9d and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion. With this expansion, businesses and consumers have direct access to all matter of documents, media and computer programs.
In addition, mark-up languages and, particularly Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which had been the documentation language of the Internet or Web for years, offered direct links between received pages and other pages on the Web with a variety of related data sources, which were at first text and then evolved into media, i.e. xe2x80x9chypermediaxe2x80x9d. This even further exploded the use of the Internet or Web.
It has been quite remarkable that a facility like the Web, which many originally regarded as almost antiquated, has been able to handle the phenomenal volume of traffic required to meet the demand. During the past few years, most of the technological resource associated with the Web has been exhaustively applied in meeting the greatly increasing traffic demands. As a result, relatively little effort has been applied in enhancing Web user interfaces in order to make them more user friendly, i.e. to make the masses of relatively unsophisticated computer users who are turning to the Web more comfortable in a more aesthetically pleasing ambiance.
Finally, at the present point in the development of the Web, there are computer hardware and software resources available beyond just what it takes to meet traffic flow demands, and consequently techniques for aesthetically enhancing human/Web interfaces and by making the user more comfortable may be addressed. The present invention is directed to such an end. It should clear to anyone who has browsed the Web that the shifting or progression between current and succeeding pages are at best abrupt, and, at worst, quite disconcerting as the user has to stand by while the current page drops out and the succeeding page fragments itself together.
The present invention provides progressions or shifting between current and succeeding Web pages which make the user comfortable, and may be easily variable by both designers and users of Web pages. The invention is directed to computer managed communication networks such as the Web or Internet. (In the present application, these terms are used synonymously.) Conventionally, user access to the network is through a plurality of data processor controlled interactive receiving display stations. The displayed received pages have been transmitted in a linkable markup language to the receiving display stations from locations remote from said stations. The received pages contain text, images and markup language control tags. In its broadest aspect, the invention involves the use of such control tags in a transmitted page selected to succeed a currently displayed page for controlling display functions in said currently displayed page in combination with means responsive to these control tags for implementing said display functions. In the implementation, control tags in the current page are selectively activatable in response to control tags in the succeeding page. In accordance with an optional aspect of the invention, the current page further includes data for selectively determining whether the current page is controllable by said succeeding page. This data my be a list of URLs (Uniform Resource Linkages) of succeeding pages only by which the current page may be controlled. Conversely, the succeeding page may be set up to include this data for selectively determining whether said current page is controllable by said succeeding page. Aspects of the effective and desirable progressions described above may be implemented through at least one activatable control tag in said current page controlling a display function for a selected functional progression from said current page to said succeeding page. In accordance with a significant aspect of the present invention, the desired progression involves the manipulation of a portion of the currently displayed page and the inclusion of said manipulated portion in said succeeding displayed page. Also, the progression from the current to the succeeding Web page may involve aesthetically pleasing and user comfortable transitions between pages, as covered in greater detail in our above-mentioned cross-referenced copending patent application.
It should be emphasized that the present invention is based upon the concept that the following, or succeeding page, controls the transition from the currently displayed page to this succeeding page. For example, the control function in the succeeding page may specify that all displayed prior, i.e. currently displayed pages, are to be unrendered or exited in a specified manner irrespective of the HTML content of such pages.